Acclaimed Actress of Film, Stage to Work with WSU Students

Jan 11, 2006

OGDEN, Utah – Claire Bloom, famed actress of film and stage, will spend a week working with Weber State University students as the 2006 Dean W. and Carol W. Hurst Artist-in-Residence.

In addition to coaching and conducting workshops with students majoring in theatre arts, Bloom will present a dramatized reading of “Jane Eyre” on Jan. 21 at 7:30 p.m. in the Val A. Browning Center Allred Theater. The reading is open to the public. Tickets to the event are $5 each for general admission seating and may be purchased through the Dee Events Center Ticket Office at (801) 626-8500 or 1-800-WSU-TIKS.

Bloom’s career spans nearly five decades. The London native studied at England’s Central School of Speech Training and Dramatic Art before making her stage debut in 1946 and her film debut in 1948. She received international recognition when cast as a ballerina in her second film, Charlie Chaplin’s “Limelight” (1952). Other notable productions she has appeared in include “The Haunting” (1963), “The Spy Who Came in From the Cold” (1965) starring Richard Burton, and Woody Allen’s “Crimes and Misdemeanors” (1989).

Throughout her career Bloom has played many of the Shakespearean women, including leading roles in “Romeo and Juliet,” “The Merchant of Venice,” “As You Like It,” “Richard III,” “Hamlet” and “King Henry the Eighth.”

She won rave reviews in London for her performance as Blanche DuBois (“A Streetcar Named Desire”), on Broadway for her role of Nora (“A Doll’s House”) and at Boston’s prestigious American Repertory Theatre starring as Madame Ranevskaya (“The Cherry Orchard”). She was also a Best Actress nominee at the 1999 Tony Awards for her role as Clytemnestra in “Electra” (1998).

This past holiday season Bloom’s talent was seen locally as she guest starred alongside soprano Renee Fleming in the Mormon Tabernacle Choir’s annual Christmas concert on Temple Square. Bloom narrated a touching Christmas tale from the 1917 Russian revolution and also recounted the Christmas story from the second chapter of the book of Luke in the King James Version of the Bible.

Each year the Hurst Artist-in-Residence program at WSU offers students an opportunity to learn from and work with a prominent figure from different artistic disciplines. The program, which began in 1999, is funded through the generosity of Dean and Carol Hurst.